


soar on wings like eagles

by Itar94



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Angels are Dicks, Cas-centric, Castiel (Supernatural)'s True Form, Demons, Falling Castiel, Hunter Castiel, Hunters, POV Alternating, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Time Travel Complications, Time Travel Fix-It, Various cameos and appearances by other characters and OCs, hunts, this got complicated real fast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-01-28 23:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12618248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itar94/pseuds/Itar94
Summary: Given a chance to start over, Castiel seizes it, for Dean and Sam’s sake, and his own.Everything changes. Some things desperately try to stay the same.





	1. the church

**Author's Note:**

> _The title comes from the Bible verse Isaiah 40:31: "[...] but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _So, uh, I wasn’t going to start writing a new fic until I’d completed at least one of my old wips. But I’m very bad at keeping those kind of promises, so, here we are._   
>  _This diverges from canon after season 8 and during season 2. So the Castiel here maybe isn’t exactly the same as the one in the last few seasons (I haven’t watched SPN after season 9-ish, so there’s that). This fic sat waiting so lonely in my drafts for months and I needed to make something out of it. I don’t know where to exactly the story is headed or when/if I’ll finish it..._

# soar on wings like eagles

* * *

 _ **tabula rasa** _  
_from Latin meaning ‘blank slate’;_  
_in epistemological philosophy the idea that all humans_  
_are born without any built-in knowledge, and thus_  
_everything must be taught through experience and perception_

* * *

**i.  
the church**

* * *

A human sits in a church, his hands clasped and his head bent, but he does not pray. One never knows who could be listening, and those who have the power to overhear are dangerous. Most of them want him destroyed. He didn’t begin life as a human, but no one around here knows that, and they’ve never heard of his true name. His wings have been broken and he is alone and homeless.

Is this ever going to end?

Is this ever going to stop hurting?

Eventually, all things must come to an end. All things. Even pain. One day, Death shall reap God, and the Beginning shall be Ended. After all, that is written. But they’ve veered off script so long ago and now he’s not sure what’s real and what the whispers of Prophets and the Orders from Heaven (long ago silences in confusion: war and uproar and the murder of their own kin has made it impossible to tell the truth) even matter. In the end, what do they matter, if the end will not come and there will be no spite, no relief?

He hasn’t prayed for a long time. That’s not what angels do. Angels believe and obey and do not question, but he hasn’t been a good angel for a long time. Long time. Time. He has been on Earth long enough now, enough to know emotion and taste it though it remains somewhat foreign, and his Grace is slowly burning out, and he has been among the Fallen and he has been human and no place is safe, for Heaven wants him dead, and Hell wants him burned, and the humans that he know – Earth, Earth has been a haven, for a brief moment. A mere blink during his ceaseless existence. The last few years and months have been but minor bumps on a timescale vaster than human imagination; but not insignificant, not unimportant – he has learned so much, become so much, and he has fallen and risen and fallen again. And for so long, so long he’s been the perfect angel. He has obeyed and never questioned, and then he raised Dean Winchester from Perdition and fled Hell with wings crumbling by fire, and few souls had begun so bright and ended so dark.

He has lived, and he has died. If he were to be ended now there’s no guarantee that it would last and he isn’t sure where dead angels go, it is not something that is spoken of in Heaven or in any text and if God ever mentioned it the Host has forgotten. He has survived Purgatory and if that is where he’s headed, he can go through it again, but he does not want to. He does want to live, but he wants peace, and he wants to simply be and breathe and it was easier, it was easier back then when he was wilfully ignorant – but has he ever been? He’d been sent back and forth to Intelligence to be wiped and tortured, re-educated and reassembled. They had thought he’d been silenced and he’d never truly broken free.

Perhaps it’d have been better if they had ended him the first time, the first transgression. Castiel doesn’t remember that first time though it remains a scar on his Grace. He must have questioned, shown emotion, shown doubt, and expressed something that the superiors could not allow. He might have tried to stop their Plans back then, a hundred, a thousand, a million years ago. He does not remember.

Praying doesn’t need to be done in a church or a mosque or a synagogue to be heard, but it seems fitting. The building is empty. A few candles burning, the door unlocked. The silence is complete and he wishes to forget so much. Hell and Heaven, and the encroaching darkness and the vastness of time and space and all he sins he’s committed. All the blood, human and angel, on his hands.

He wants to fight fate. But fate is a lie. They proved that when the Apocalypse was averted and Lucifer spoke with Sam’s voice before he cast them down into the Pit, Michael with them, and Castiel died for the second time that day in that cemetery in Lebanon and if he’d just stopped. If he’d just stopped in that moment and not returned to Heaven; he could have backed away. Remained with Dean, perhaps, a guardian angel on his shoulder. Dean and Bobby and the other human survivors. Chosen humanity.

But he had seen the chaos left behind in Heaven and the stirrings of war and wanted to stop it, and Raphael had been adamant to crush his followers and deny peace and Castiel should have ended it then. Instead he took on the Leviathan and made things worse and he had only wanted to save his kin. He only wanted to make Heaven pure again and make them all see that they needn’t kill anyone anymore and for that Raphael needed to see the light. And Castiel had only been a simple angel, a tiny speck of dirt on the windshield, and he saw afterward the sins and he had embraced Purgatory and lifting Sam’s painful memories of Hell as penance.

But they’re now all dead or dying or changed beyond hope. Metatron’s spell has torn his Grace from his grasp forever and thrown them all out of home, and now he is alone. He is alone, broken, confused, full of emotions and fears and no one will catch him. The Winchesters - why would they, after all that he’s caused them? Dean told him to leave the Bunker, to protect Sam no doubt. To go. It’s … safer. For the best. For their best.

If he had known back then about the pains and the hardships ahead, he would have carved out a piece of Heaven and brought Sam and Dean there to forever Be, peacefully, he would have warded it so deeply that no one else would ever find it and the Earth couldn’t burn, and then perhaps he would have brought his angel blade upon himself and emptied his Grace into the Pit. It would’ve been over. There would’ve been peace, and the Earth would continue and most humans wouldn’t know that the Apocalypse had swept them by and they’d survived and there would have been peace. There could have been peace.

There should have been peace.

He sits in the third row from the pulpit, hands clasped, and he looks at the human depictions of the Saints and the Holy Virgin in the colourstained windows and the cross on the wall and the flickering candles, and they do not speak to him, though once upon a time they would have cemented his Faith despite how erroneous so many human depictions of Him and His Word are. And he has been among humans and he has been human and he isn’t surprised when he feels his eyes are wet and lids heavy and tears trailing down his cheeks. He knows that these emotions are grief and shock and the sensation of being overwhelmed with horror, and he is in awe that humans can bear this, from beginning to end. Most angels would be destroyed at the touch of emotion.

(Perhaps that’s why they always failed.)

_Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned._

He closes his eyes and exhales softly.

So many things. So many things he should have done differently. He should not have threatened Dean with sending him back to Hell, back to the rack and Alistair. He should not have seen Sam as an Abomination but as a victim of circumstances beyond his own control. He should not have trusted the words of Zachariah and his superiors blindly and he should have trusted the humans even more and he should have make certain that Bobby Singer would have lived a longer life and he should have realized the depth of the bond between Dean and Sam and that separating the two would destroy them. He should not have sought Godhood and power in order to strike Raphael down and bring peace. Peace! He should have … _Peace_. He ever wanted Peace! He wanted the Word of God to be true and he wanted to **believe** , and he needed his faith more than anything and he wanted.

Castiel takes a shuddering breath and lowers his face into his hands. His face is wet with tears. This face, Jimmy’s face – dead: Jimmy is in Heaven, and Jimmy might not know about his wife or daughter’s fates because why would he? – this face has bled and been bruised while in Castiel’s possession much more often than it’s been drowned in tears. Angels do not weep. But angels do not sleep or eat or feel remorse, angels do not love, angels do not look upon the world of humans in awe, angels do not doubt. True angels protect, yes, but they are warriors of Wrath and for most of his existence Wrath was all that Castiel knew.

He had thought that to disobey and Fall was worse than freedom.

Oh, they’re wrong. He was wrong. They’re all so wrong. Angels were made without Free Will but they could witness it on Earth and they could taste it – Castiel tasted it and it was a _Revelation_. He’d tried to make the others see that but he cannot protect Heaven. All he’d done had only made things worse.

He sits there, in one of so countless many manmade Houses of his Father, head bowed and shoulders shaking, and he does not at first see the light flashing outside the windows and reaching inside of it. Then a tremble runs through the ground and it is not unlike the visage of an angel: a true form, its true faces, blinding bright, vast and beyond old. But it isn’t an angel and when he looks up there is no true form, no white light, no shattering noise.

Instead, sitting next to him on the previously empty pew, is an elderly woman. Her face is soft and kind and there is something both extremely foreign and familiar about it, and he wants to both recoil and trust Her all at once.

For a moment, he could have sworn that it wasn’t an old woman, but an older man wearing the Face of Death; and, at the same time, the young Prophet who had written the Winchester Gospel and disappeared after the Apocalypse that didn’t come to pass; and, at the same time, this Being has all and no faces. There is no soul, but no Grace or demonic smoke. The elderly woman merely … **is**.

Castiel has lost his Grace. He is human now, as human as an angel without a soul can become, and he needs to breathe, but he looks at the old woman and forgets how to do that. It might be a second, a minute, but the moment feels like an hour a year an eternity beyond measure. Her smile is both gentle and dangerous.

His heartbeat quickens. He knows. The old woman does not need Names. Her hand thrums with unbrimmed power and something so much older than himself and he has never felt this small and powerless and yet, and yet, it is not the end. She touches his shoulder gently, like a grandmother would to comfort a child on a stormy day when the rain smatters against the windows and the winds fell trees and lightning strikes.

She might or might not speak aloud, he isn’t sure, he cannot properly define this moment but he has an impression of Her saying: “Child, I’m not here to hurt you.”

Then why? then _why_? and why _now_ , after all of this, after the Horsemen and the –

“Do you know how many times I’ve been asked that, Castiel?”

He starts shaking his head, then recalls that this is probably a rhetorical question, not to be answered. But the old woman isn’t angered. She chuckles softly, and then Her face turns more serious. He tries to define Her but finds that he cannot: he can still, to an extent, perceive True Faces, but this one is far beyond his grasp. There is no bright shadow of a soul. Her eyes might be a shimmering grey, or dark brown, or deep as a murky ocean, clear as a day in June. Her voice is deep and light, eternally clear and once it held only Will and Purpose and it always answered.

“To answer your question: I made sure there was free will, and that was the beauty of this Creation. The Darkness took everything else I’d made before and the problem with those Creations was that they were too perfect. Nothing marred, everything set out beforehand, a set of rigid balanced equations. This one I made different. Setting up the laws of physics, I let things take a turn of their own. And sure enough, there was life, and it grew and changed and evolved without me guiding every step of the way. And that’s true beauty. I was the artist but the brush was guiding me, not the other way around. So you see the importance of Free Will.”

She looks at him gravely, and he has to avert his eyes. It’s too much to bear.

“I don’t hand out favours lightly. It’s been a learning curve for me too, you know. But you’re the closest an angel has become to human, and it’s not a mistake.”

But he is not. He is without a soul. He is without a soul and yet it hurts so much, and even angels can feel but should they truly feel this deeply? Should the pain be this close to his flesh and his bones? He is without a soul.

“Would you like to have one?”

And, taken off guard by such a question, he lifts his head again to stare ahead at the flickering candles and he whispers, hoarsely: “Yes. I … I prefer humans to angels nowadays. They are messy and complicated and emotional, and sometimes they scare me. But they’re also full of …” He trails off; no words seem to exist in any language of the world to encompass this emotion buried in his breast where his heart is. _Love? Honesty? Loyalty?_ “… **life**.”

She sounds content. “That they are.” Her hand is burning now, and he thinks that if he were to look directly at Her, he would be blinded and filled with fear. He swallows hard. “You did not sin, because that would mean you meant for there to be pain. You wanted peace but you tried – too hard.”

“That, that makes no sense,” he has to protest suddenly and shame wells up in him. Who is he, so insignificant and tiny, to protest Her?

“Castiel,” and the voice is deeper than the Pit and gleaming with the spark of Creation, and maybe he is dying and piercing the veil. Is that what this is? Is he falling into Purgatory or the Darkness beyond it, wherever dead soulless angels go? “This is the one wish I’ll grant you. When you wake up, your Grace will be restored, but it will not be the same. You will only have one chance. Do you understand?”

He cannot speak. He can only nod numbly.

A note is slipped into his hand, folded once, and then Her touch on his shoulder is gone and there is no sound, no whisper of wind or flutter of wings.

She merely _is_. She _does_.

Darkness climbs over his mind to overtake it, and Castiel doesn’t recall falling.

* * *

When he wakes up, the world is dark but he can see. And his Grace – _his_ Grace, which he thought was lost and destroyed forever by Metatron and his spell – it burns in his veins like ice, like the core of a star, the explosion of a supernova compressed into the small space that fits inside a human body, and he’s lying on the ground in a crumpled heap, on his side. His body … still **his** flesh. Jimmy’s soul is departed; but this body appears the same, the genetic structure and the bones and the marrow – it is as Jimmy Novak’s flesh was. His body is whole and a little sore, feels bruised, but not severely. He glances around, carefully tries to move.

He is lying in the middle of nowhere. A forest. Stars glimmer faraway through a wisp of grey cloud. There is a hint of colour yet at the horizon from a golden sunset. The chilly air smells of earth and water and carbon dioxide. It smells of Earth, not Heaven.

The ground beneath is hard and his body is heavy as he drags himself up to sit, and he realizes that he is within a crater in a grassy field, as if landing here after a long free fall. His Grace is there, yes, but it feels torn at, weakened and scarred. But he can summon it and he stretches his wings as a man would his legs.

They are frayed and torn but whole. Healing. Not like after the fought through Hell for forty years in search of the Righteous Man. Yes, he is weak and it will take time to mend. The Grace tastes somewhat different from before but he cannot put his finger on it. He thinks he is a Seraphim still, not demoted back to a Power nor moved upward. It might be something different and new entirely.

He looks around. A wide glade within a forest without anything to reveal his exact location. The air is chilly. An early winter night without snow.

Then down at himself. His body looks fresh. Atoms pulled together and still glowing, and he is an angel now but the cold is quite severe, and he wraps his arms around himself. It’s then he notices that in his right hand he’s clutching the note. Carefully he unfolds it. If he were fully human he would not have been able to read the beautiful script in the dark, but his eyes turn a pale icy blue as he reads the simple message:

 _Pontiac, Illinois. March 1, 2006_.  
_Good luck._

So that is where and when he is. If he’d been a fledgling fresh out of Heaven, Castiel would’ve been terrified and confused at the notion of being sent back in time by another without clear Orders. Not now. He stands up and concentrates on his body, looking inward, mapping sensations. His flesh is the same, but symbols are burned into the bones: wards to hide him, he realizes. Sigils similar to the ones he’d burned onto Sam and Dean’s ribs once upon a time. These are much more powerful, meant not just to conceal him from being found but if a supernatural creature were to stand right in front of him at this moment they would not be able to see what he is.

But what is his purpose? He –

But there is no clear purpose, because there was no Order. Only … Free Will. So the question is: w _hat does he want to do?_

And it is obvious. He wants to spare Sam and Dean as much suffering as possible, and in doing so also help his siblings in Heaven. Avert the Apocalypse but with different results. He thinks of all the other souls who have died: Bobby Singer, Ellen and Jo Harvelle, John Winchester, Mary. Mary is beyond his control. He cannot return to Heaven. John Winchester is still alive, though. Is he with the brothers or not yet found? For a time he was possessed by Azazel, and then … yes, there’d been a deal made, and an escape, and the Impala had been crushed in an automobile accident leading to Dean’s first conversation with one of the hands of Death. John Winchester had paid with his soul for him to live, perhaps unconsciously guided by the Host; Castiel isn’t certain, since his orders had been different at the time and he hasn’t been involved with the Winchesters.

At that time, Castiel had been a mere angel among an infinity of others and he had followed orders and shown patience, and that patience along with his willingness to communicate with humans had led to his assignment to bring Dean Winchester out of Hell. If John Winchester hadn’t made that deal and Dean had died, the angels no doubt would have returned him to Earth because Dean is the Righteous Man and Dean needed to fall into Hell and break there.

No, not this time. This time things will be different.

Before, Castiel would not have thought about harming John Winchester. But he has seen Dean’s battered soul and his cruel excuse of a childhood, and being around humans has taught him things. If he meets John in this world, Castiel isn’t sure if he could stop himself from smiting or at least severely harming the man who in heart-wrenching anger sought revenge for his wife’s death and became a hunter when he should have been a better father. Protected his children, not trained them to become soldiers.

There are many other names, many other souls, he intends to give a longer life here on Earth.

Then he considers the demons and other enemies. If he is to help the Winchesters, he must get close to them. At this time they will not understand what an angel is and won’t believe him, and even if they did they’d no doubt attempt to kill him. They’ve been raised to hunt and destroy the inhuman and the monsters. According to those definitions, Castiel should be targeted. So, he must not tell them the truth, not all at once.

All of these thoughts pass him by in a few seconds only since woke up. Castiel stretches his wings again, prepared to lift them.

Then he stops himself. No, he cannot fly without revealing his true identity. He cannot fly to Heaven. He needs to avoid Heaven for as long as he can. Once they catch up, he doubts that Zachariah and Uriel and Raphael will be very understanding. No, he must hide.

He needs a disguise and a means to find the Winchesters without raising their suspicions. He cannot show his wings and tell them he’s an angel; that would never help him or them, not right now; they do not believe angels to be real.

_Who or what could a hunter possibly trust?_


	2. as long as we are human, part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (2018-08-08) It's been half an eternity since I started writing this ... (according to the draft dates I began this chapter in March) ... I've got half-finished drafts of a couple of chapters ahead waiting to be completed, and a lot of other fics and stuff IRL, but I do want to continue this fic so here we go. I can't say how long this fic will end up being - knowing my track record, it'll be much bigger than first anticipated. At least a dozen chapters (ish?), I think. Since I've been sitting on this so long, I decided to split this chapter in two, hence the "part one" bit. Just to get it out. Please enjoy!

**ii.**

# as long as we are human

**part one**

* * *

The Roadhouse doesn’t look like much from the outside. Like any other old rural bar down the road, threadbare and grim, paint flaking off. The building appears like a gust of wind could possible erase it.

The inside is worn but well cared for, the floorboards trodden and scarred but the counter is polished and clean. A stranger might find the occasional odd and ends peculiar but put it down to the owner’s interest in the occult. Most people don’t know about the devil’s traps hidden under the rug by the door or painted on the ceiling in red, obscured by wooden beams and light fixtures. They’d see the polished bar counter and the somewhat dusty video game in the corner and the beer-marked tables and thought that, yeah, it’s just another old rural roadhouse in the middle of nowhere.

There is a silent agreement here. No secret handshake, but an understanding of looking out for one another, gather news, share them carefully without having to sugar-coat anything or speak in riddles.

The truth is that few outsiders hit the Roadhouse, avoiding it because while it _looks_ ordinary there is a sense of the extraordinary about it. Most of its guests are hunters or part of the community in one way or another. They’ve had all kinds visiting over the years: a psychic here, a pastor with an eye on supernatural occurrences there. It’s a place to exchange news, hunting stories, tips and lore. It’s as close to a nerve-centre as is it can get.

He hasn’t seen this place other than in brief visions in Dean’s dreams. One of their hunter friends, Ash, possessed – will possess – a Heaven just like this place, but no room in Heaven is a perfect carbon copy of the Earthly thing. The human memory is fickle and can be tricked, and Heaven is part make-believe to the human soul and can be altered over time, stretched and marked and consolidated. Some souls are content without change; some cannot be without it. It’s happened, sometimes, rare times, that human souls have tried to escape Heaven. Righteous People who cannot remain behind but seek a way to return to Earth. Dean and Sam would do so if either one died without the other. Even if reunited, would they be content?

He doubts it.

Castiel stands by the roadside, contemplating for a moment if this is the right choice. He has been in this past for several days now. At first, he sought a place to rest for a while and replenish his Grace and think. Heavily warded, he looks human, but a strong enough creature or psychic might pick up on the falseness of his aura.

He’d returned to that long-since abandoned warehouse outside of Pontiac. Perhaps it was a risky venture, but that fragile building has been warded by Bobby Singer and other hunters for several years with symbols from virtually any culture the humans knew of, and it looks nondescript to the outward eye. In there, he would not be reached by a demon, and angels wouldn’t know to look for him. Castiel had spent three days there thinking and recuperating. He isn’t in a hurry. He is patient, and Earth moves so slowly compared to time in Heaven, so three days is no hardship. It had allowed him to consider his options in greater depth. Most of that time, he had remained in what Dean had once referred to as ‘stealth mode’, slipping into the space between atoms so that human eyes cannot perceive him. Once he had made up his mind of what to do, he realizes that he needed to build some foundations for his disguise.

A hunter hunts; therefore he needed to find such a hunt. He knows how to perform a salt and burn and how to exorcise a demon the human way, but there is more to it than that. There is knowledge in a thousand languages from hundreds of cultures buried in his mind, and he has watched Sam and Dean hunt so many kind of supernatural creatures that research, he hopes, will not be the hard part.

But he doesn’t know how to wield most firearms and other human weapons. He must learn not to rely on his Grace entirely while fighting. He does not want to reveal himself but he is going to need, at one point or another, to create himself a network of hunter acquaintances so that he can contact them for information and slowly work his way toward the Winchesters without raising alarms. And to, perhaps, in some future, reveal himself. In a way, speaking the truth would be such a relief, and he’d like to but he can’t. He isn’t ready to take on the Host once they find out what he’s done. No, he must lay low and wait.

Castiel isn’t a good liar, he’s been told. He’s been perceived as naïve for an angel, dangerous but innocent, deadly yet harmless. And he isn’t good at lying, he prefers truth, but he has lied, lied so much: to the Winchesters, to his siblings, and it’d led to his downfall into madness and siding with Crowley and opening Purgatory, and that isn’t a path Castiel likes to think about. He won’t go down it again.

He’d preferred humanity too much. Too much heart, according to Anael (and she is someone he plans on making certain to keep safe). And he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t have any other motives for coming to the Roadhouse. The last he saw of Ellen and Jo Harvelle they were in a lifeless town surrounded by Reapers, the two hunters, the Winchesters, and himself about to take on Lucifer with the Colt. The two had died in an explosion while Castiel was trapped in a circle of fire, and only years later had he understood his own emotions regarding their loss. Perhaps in Heaven they were at peace, but neither of them had wanted to die, especially in such a gruesome way. Afterward, Dean and Sam had … changed. Before that strike, there had still been some hope in their souls but afterward – losing Ellen and Jo, and the Colt not killing Lucifer – that flame had faded.

Castiel stands there for several minutes, faltering. This might be a terrible idea. There are other ways to find hunts. He could remain hidden and observe …

But he is a flawed and selfish creature, and he wants to meet the Winchesters face to face again, assure himself that their souls are alive and unbroken.

The Roadhouse is lit from within, warmly and almost homely, like a living memory and Castiel recalls everything he can about this place. It isn’t much. Sam, Dean, and Bobby rarely if ever spoke of it aloud, though sometimes Castiel had seen the shadows of it on their souls. The Roadhouse had been destroyed by demons led by Azazel and his followers.

The building is old, on the edges worn and crumbling. Ellen’s husband helped to run it before it died, killed on a hunt. Castiel knows little more about that and he is in no position to fly to Heaven and speak with the man’s departed soul. All information he is to gather henceforward must be done the human way. He’s witnessed Sam (and Dean, not as often) researching. How difficult could it be?

Well, for another day. He crosses the road and enters the Roadhouse.

He’d spent several days invisible, picking up accidentally dropped coins in various cities without using his wings. Perhaps the trail of Grace would be contained thanks to the powerful wards now etched into his being, but Castiel needs more time to study them to be certain, and he would rather remain inconspicuous as long as possible, until an emergency occurs. Besides, he has time. So he’d gathered coins and the occasional bill from the ground. He had then gone to a bank and set up an account in a falsified name. Fixing the paperwork had taken an afternoon and he had spent an hour merely contemplating the name he’d use. For a moment he’d thought about _Jimmy_ , or _Clarence,_ or _Steve_. It’s generic enough.

Once he has some money in the account, he feels – well, a little more _human_. Acquiring money to live off is what humans do. It can then be spent on essentials, clothes, food if necessary.

He hopes the clothes he had picked aren’t too strange. Dean used to refer to his vessel’s attire as ‘holy tax accountant’ and Castiel had come to learn that that’s not what a hunter ought to look like. In order to blend in, he’d tried to emulate Dean and Sam, jeans and plaids and a dark jacket with deep pockets. It feels odd. Clothes are a layer upon his vessel which he strictly speaking doesn’t need. After all, his Grace keeps his vessel at good health and he does not feel heat or cold, doesn’t fall ill. He’d gotten used to the trenchcoat, that imperceptible weight upon his human shoulders. The jacket isn’t the same.

Sam and Dean use – used – will use – the Impala to stash their weapons, salt rounds, books, and plethora of fake badges. Such badges Castiel thinks he might have to create, something more than the one ID he currently possesses. Luckily it’ll be easier for him than for a true human; even without direct use of Grace, he can render himself invisible and break in virtually anywhere. A decade ago, he wouldn’t have thought it right or been able to steal things, or break in somewhere, but he knows how to hotwire and drive a car (though Dean never thought he was particularly good at it). He knows how to fake a birth certificate or an FBI badge. He doesn’t have a car, though. No Impala he can travel with or hide in.

To get to the Roadhouse, he’d taken several buses over the span of a couple of days and then walked the last mile down the road, since the Roadhouse is quite isolated, no doubt to not attract attention if a huge group of hunters are meeting up. In the future he should get a vehicle, he decides, though cars are very confining and slow. His feet hadn’t tired or felt heavy due to the walking, his Grace isn’t that weak, but his Grace is not that much better yet either. Sleeping had made him feel better. The scars aren’t closed. He shouldn’t have the urge to sleep.

He wishes he could dare to fly.

Over his shoulder he’s slung a bag where he keeps some newly acquired things: a few weapons, some spare clothes (if he is to masquerade as a human, he needs to change clothes once in a while), a towel and toothbrush. He cannot rely on his Grace to keep himself clean all the time.

He lacks a lot of things he needs. He has his angel blade, but he mustn’t use it openly. He has two knives which he’d obtained using the money from the street at a pawnshop. The owner of that shop had looked at him a little oddly but had been completely human; Castiel is glad he can continue to see True Faces without using his Grace directly. Neither knife will smite demons, but one of them – smaller and shorter – is silver which will help against shifters. The second one is large and broad and strong enough should he encounter something like a vampire that can only be killed through decapitation. He also got his hands on a gun and the materials to make salt rounds, as well as normal ammunition. Salt. Once he’s certain it’s safe for him to fly, he’ll go to Rome and gather a flask of holy oil, just in case. There are other things too, weapons and means of protection he should gather in time, ingredients for rituals and spells, but it can wait. All of that is kept in the bag except the small silver knife, which he keeps in a holster strapped to the inside of his jacket for easy reach.

If Dean saw him now, the human would no doubt think him out of his mind. A seasoned hunter would think him woefully unprepared. Never having done proper research. Rarely having stood against a demon or vampire or wendigo or anything else without using his Grace as his primary weapon or line of defence.

He’d also tattooed himself with a warding symbol against demon possession. The artist in the parlour had hummed in concentration and only asked once about the intricate and slightly odd design. The angel had modified the symbol slightly to be extra potent. The tattoo might not be utterly necessary thanks to the extensive sigils on his ribs, but Castiel is careful. Having to heal himself at such a slow rate – yet faster than the average human but not in the blink of an eye – had been annoying. But using his Grace would reveal his scent and angels are far more dangerous than bloodhounds. He hadn’t known that human skin could itch like this, or burn dully for hours. It had taken a few days before the skin was no longer red and irritated.

Two weeks after returning to the past, Castiel walks into the Roadhouse. There are a few patrons there spread out at odd intervals, speaking in low voices while music hums in the background, and behind the bar he sees Ellen Harvelle, speaking with a costumer while serving them a tall glass of a beverage. Castiel’s step doesn’t falter, but something in his chest warms at seeing the human woman alive and whole, her soul intact. He hadn’t realized that he’d react like that, though millennia of training as a Captain of his Garrison keeps him from letting such emotion show on his human face. He can’t give away recognition.

There’d been a moment of quiet as the door opened, no doubt the hunters already here silencing and choosing safer topics of conversation – ‘normal’ stuff – in case he’s a civilian without any notion of the supernatural. When he reaches the counter, Ellen flashes a smile.

“Hi, what can I getcha?”

Castiel tries to look at the human faces around him and not at their souls directly. He hadn’t realized until he Fell for the first time how much he depended on looking at souls to understand human emotion and wellbeing. He had not noticed that Dean’s eyes were green, or the way Sam ruefully smiled, or Bobby’s stern but kindly countenance until his Grace was too weak for him to use and he could no longer pierce their souls at a glance. He’s not very good at reading human emotion, regardless if it shows through the flesh or the soul. But he’ll keep trying.

“Hello,” he says. He’s not good at acting either, and cannot give his voice any other intonation that what he always uses. Ellen is looking at him like Justice or Fate would to judge someone, and she must be trying to figure out whether he is a hunter or someone else. Castiel asks for a beverage – one of a kind he’s witnessed Dean order hundreds of times – and Ellen grabs a glass to fill it for him. He sits in the barstool, back ramrod straight, aware that he is being judged by the others in the bar. From the way they do so, he guesses that everyone is a hunter.

“Don’t recognize you. You from around here?” Ellen asks and her voice is pleasant and frank, but this is no doubt an interrogation.

“No. I’m from … other parts,” he says as he hands over the money for the drink. By his count, he managed to gather a few thousand dollars before going here; it’ll be enough to start with.

“Here on business?”

If he’d been human, he’d blink owlishly. He stares at her for a moment until he realizes that there is subtext beneath those words which a hunter would understand. “Yes. I thought visiting your establishment would be a good idea to find more business, if there is any,” he says, adding the last part hoping that the ruse works.

He can speak every language on Earth from the beginning of its creation up until now, but there are a lot of angels out there who are better at understanding the implied and the unsaid than he. Although with Gabriel and Balthazar that was the case because they’d spent so long on Earth in hiding rather than because of an innate talent of their characters. The thought causes him almost to sigh. Will he end up like them? Exhausted and tired and not … not bothering with Heaven anymore at all because he’ll want it all over with?

Ellen accepts this explanation and nods slightly, and it’s like breath is returned to the bar. The men and women in there, who’d been talking about the weather or a sports game or news, return to their original topics. Castiel does not listen to anyone in particular as he sips his drink (the taste is uncomfortable, every molecule overwhelming, but he hides his wince) idly but picks up a word here and there, and they do not fall under a category other humans would consider to be ‘normal’.

Near the window to the left two men are discussing a recent case. Vampires. One of the men has a gash over his temple which has begun healing but will leave a scar, and the other has a bruised jaw and no doubt other hurts on his body which he’s stoically trying to conceal. Castiel has found that hunters usually patch each other or themselves up alone, without interference from hospitals due to questions that would arise, and they are notoriously bad at acknowledging their hurts. There are no healers among them, no Rit Zien. The thought startles a bad memory and Castiel quickly pushes it aside.

Two other humans are playing a game of pool to the angel’s left, and he knows them both. One he once knew in person; one who he has seen in Heaven but never interacted with directly. Jo Harvelle and – Ash, yes, that’s the name. The man’s hair is unruly and there’s a few days’ growth of beard on his chin, and he’s wearing several piercing and other jewellery. No doubt these are made of silver and iron and thus have more than one function.

Jo looks younger and more carefree here, her hair unbound and she’s laughing at something as they play, the sound of the cues hitting each other sharp in Castiel’s ears. A few people are looking at the game, cheering them on or possibly betting on the game while drinking beer from bottles. Castiel doesn’t know the rules of the game but has seen Sam and Dean both hustling pool many, many times to earn money. Hm. Perhaps that is something he ought to learn how to do.

Castiel sits there, holding the glass of beer unsure if he can actually drink anymore of it because of the overwhelming sensation of drinking. The alcohol will not impair him or affect his judgment. He does recall tasting beer while he was a human. It was not a very pleasurable experience. He’d found then how he liked some foods and disliked others. But as an angel, it’s all too much and complex.

Ellen goes around back, shuffling around with something, and returns to the counter after a while. Her gaze travels between Castiel’s half-drunk glass and his face, stoic and emotionless and unwavering.

“So you’re a hunter, huh. Got a name?”

“Cas,” he says, hesitating for a millisecond. He almost lies, using an alias like _Jimmy_ or a wholly ordinary name like _Steve_ , as he had when working at the Gas’n’Sip. But if he is to live with a name among these human hunters for an unseen time ahead, he doesn’t want to live with such a lie. Answering to a name not his own is always difficult. “Cas Novak.”

“Huh. Well, I’m Ellen Harvelle, I run this saloon. Nice meetin’ you.” She looks curious. Probably know her clients quite well, by name and by face, and hunters are still quite a rarity in general. From what Castiel has learned over the years, hunters tend to work in groups in one area or country or state.

John Winchester was an exception due to the traumatic way he was introduced to the supernatural world, his wife brutally murdered and house burned down; taking his sons on the road, moving from place to place, from the deepest south to the coldest north, across borders constantly. John Winchester never knew his father was a Man of Letters and had no idea the Cambells had been hunters for generations; he’d been forced to learn things on his own, and mostly didn’t tell Sam and Dean about the network of hunters he later made contact with. Most hunters tie themselves closer to a particular (albeit large) area and find that to be enough. Cases prop up all the time. The community keeps in touch, and for a newcomer to arrive like this, it means they’ve been isolated for a reason and not grown up with hunting in the family going back generations.

“So what’s your story, Novak?”

He silently apologizes to Jimmy Novak; he has stolen his face and his voice, and now his family name. “My story, it’s … It would take a long time to tell.”

* * *

 

* * *

“… it would take a long time to tell.” Novak’s face is in shadow, difficult to read.

“Not often we get new ones in this neck of the woods,” Ellen comments. She meets Novak’s stare and she finds it a bit unnerving. This man is peculiar.

Oh, she’s seen a lot of different people over the years. Hunters can be calm and collected; they can be deranged and estranged from the normal world. She’s seen a lot of different sorts. Hasty but good ones like Walt and Roy, who tend to go in guns blazin’ but poor with their research meaning that they often end up in trouble. Amazing hunters who are very dangerous like Rufus. Specializes ones who cannot do teamwork like Gordon. Geniuses like Ash. Careful, heartfelt, gruff ones like Bobby who are always willing to lend a hand. This kid – well, not a kid; looks like he’s somewhere near his thirties or forties, difficult to tell. His eyes – it’s his eyes. The eyes don’t fit the rest of his face.

His expression is quiet and stoic and utterly calm, and there’s a storm hidden in there and his eyes belong to someone who’s old, old and pained and tired. In all her life, Ellen’s never met someone with such an intense stare. Makes her shiver. What the hell has this man seen?

“I travel around a lot,” Novak says to answer her question. It doesn’t sound like a lie. He does look like a hunter in a way, and in a way not at all. His clothes are clean like they’re pretty much brand new and so are his hands. She can’t see any marks or scars, but then she knows hunters who hide those well if they have any. Maybe he’s just been lucky in any fightin’ he’s done and not taken deep hits. “I came here from Illinois,” he adds like an afterthought.

Huh. She’ll have Ash do a little diggin’, just in case. She likes to know the folks around here, whether they’ll be trouble or in need of help. Most hunters do the job in pairs or groups. For this man to be alone, there’s got to be a reason for that.

“Well, if you’re lookin’ for a job, we might be able to help you find one,” Ellen says.

Some hunters chase cases like lifelines. Ellen’s not one of those. She’s got her saloon and her daughter to take care of, not just herself. Before, when Jo was young and her father still alive, Ellen and her husband would take turns. The rules for most hunting families are simple: don’t go on a hunt alone, but don’t go together if you’ve got a kid. They’d team up with others in the area and one of them would stay behind and take care of Jo. After the birth, most jobs had been easy and simple and quite close by. Occasional haunting. A witch causing trouble. Once there was a ghoul, and that had been a busy gruesome night.

“That would be agreeable.”

He talks kind of oddly. The accent is American but sometimes it’s so wooden, overly formal. Almost like English isn’t his native language. Perhaps it isn’t. Novak – isn’t that a European name? Slavic, maybe? Sound kind of like it. She’ll look it up later.

While she talks with Novak, Ellen discretely checks the rest of him out. He’s carrying a bag with him. She hadn’t heard a car pull up, which is kind of odd. That’s why it was a surprise to see him walk into the Roadhouse, no warning. The devil’s trap by the door hadn’t stopped him, so he’s no demon, and when she’d handing him his beer she’d make sure her silver ring touched the skin: no reaction there either, so no shifter. He does seem to be human, if a bit awkward. Stilted, like. Stiff. Socially unaware. What that depends on – if it’s a permanent personal trait or only because he’s in a new environment and needs some time to unwind – remains to be seen. Novak keeps glancing around steadily, like a soldier staking the odds and Ellen, for a moment trapped by that intense gaze, is certain that he’s mapped out where every hunter in the room is and how to escape to the door if need be. He isn’t carrying any weapons openly but she doubts he’s unarmed.

It’s odd, because there’s a softness to his face, something beneath that stern exterior. Like he’s lost and wants to go home and she’s got this gut feeling, looking at him, that there’s goodness in this guy, a sliver of something so _pure_ it actually terrifies her. The emotion seizes her and she tries to shrug it off.

She’s met soldiers. John Winchester was the most notable one – god, the man was grim – but there are others. This Novak fellow doesn’t seem as trigger happy as Walt or Roy or Gordon, nor as desperate as John Winchester. She wonders how long he’s been doing it, what his story is. How the hell he could have eyes so cold and deep and haunted, old and young all at once.

Novak’s looking sideways at the pool game. “You play?” she asks lightly.

Novak doesn’t shrug. His body language is very reserved, as if he is conserving energy, efficient, not wasting anything by relaxing or shifting. She can barely see him breathe. “No,” he says, for a second something wistful in his grave tone. His voice is like gravel, like he smokes a whole pack of cigarettes every morning. “No, I never got the chance to learn how.”

“Huh.” That’s kind of odd. She pauses. She wipes the counter again. It’s not absolutely necessary, but she wants to know more about the man. An unknown hunter can be very dangerous. “So, you came here for business. Lookin’ for information for a hunt?”

Novak returns focus to her and away from the pool game, which Jo currently seems to be winning. Her daughter’s laugh is bright. “Not exactly. I – finished my last work. I’m looking for something new.” It’s not a complete answer.

“Job went well?” she probes.

This time there is true hesitation. Something the man can’t or won’t tell. Then he actually sighs, the first true gesture she’s seen him make since he sat down and stiffly ordered a drink. “Not exactly. I was working with someone else, who … who betrayed me for his own ends. So I decided I need to go someplace I’d never been and … start anew.”

Oh, Ellen’s heard similar stories. Tragic events: a murder, a brutal attack, someone or something lost forever. That’s what can either start or end a hunter.

As if reading her mind, Novak looks at her calmly and says: “I don’t seek revenge. And the one who did it can’t come here, so you do not need to worry. Everyone here is safe from that.” This is uttered with more emotion than any earlier statement, heartfelt and a bit wry and sorrowful too, difficult to quantify and define.

Ellen considers all she knows about him, as little as it is. Her instinct tells her to keep this guy close, though not too close, until she figures him out. “If you’re lookin’ for a new hunting partner, you could talk with Hawkins and Rogers over there. Heard they’re on a case, could use some backup.”

There’s a hint of a smile. “Thank you, Ellen. I think I’ll do that.”

Taking his drink, the man stands – the movement graceful and efficient – grabs his bag and walks over to the table Ellen’s nodding toward. She can’t overhear their exact conversation between the many voices around and the rumbling music, but she sees Hawkins and Rogers speak with Novak, introductions probably going around.

Hawkins briefly glances her way as her partner speaks with Novak, the man sitting down on an empty chair next to them. Ellen nods at her certainly, in a manner she knows Hawkins will interpret as _‘he’s OK but keep an eye out’_. Then Hawkins grins and offers his hand in a quick handshake which Novak returns a bit uncertainly.

Well, if the guy was betrayed (but in what way?) by his last partner, he’s got reason to be hesitant. Ellen wonders what exactly that betrayal entailed, what it means, but she’ll pry later. If she pries too much too fast, chances are Novak’s gonna walk through that door and never come back, and she’s just got this gut feeling like she _wants_ to trust this guy. Or, maybe not trust him. But let him into the circle. Ellen trusts her instincts. They’ve saved her life more than once.

Yeah, she’ll keep an eye on him.

* * *

 

* * *

Their names are Annie Hawkins and Tara Rogers, and they are young for humans but seasoned hunters, and Castiel has a sense that he has glimpsed their names somewhere in Dean’s memories. Hunters who probably are dead in the future he comes from, taken by the Apocalypse or later. He doesn’t mention the Winchesters since he doesn’t officially have a connection with them yet, has to learn to know them. They will not be the same people he knows. And that is good. He’ll do what he can do stop them from becoming those people, so broken and shattered.

They buy his explanation that he’s a traveller looking for a hunt, albeit a bit warily. Such wariness saves lives and he isn’t offended.

“We’ve got this case, less than fifty miles from here. Everything points to there being a nest, we think there’s five or six of them. Lucky for you we’re got most of the research done,” Annie Hawkins says.

“Know how to gank a vamp?” Hawkins’ partner, Tara Rogers, asks.

“Through decapitation,” he says without infliction. “It’s significantly easier if the vampire has been weakened with dead man’s blood.” He has killed a few vampires in his time though only with his Grace; but he has seen Dean and Sam do it multiple times, and knows the lore. “If you’d like assistance I can lend it.”

This answer seems to please the hunters because Annie – she and Tara ask to use first names, as does he – grins. There is still some wariness, but that is to be expected. A good hunter doesn’t trust blindly. He had pretended not to react at their subtle tests whether he is fully human: a press of silver here, a murmured Latin phrase there. He’s certain that Ellen Harvelle had included some holy water in the beer. Just in case, because a careless hunter lives a very short life.

Tara murmurs to Annie, discretely: “Could use some backup taking out the nest.”

Castiel doesn’t have a place to stay tonight but pretends he does. After all, he cannot explain that he doesn’t strictly need to sleep, and that spending money on a motel room would be redundant; he’ll rest by the roadside someplace, and wait for dawn. They talk for a bit and in here, within the sanctuary of the Roadhouse, it’s safe to discuss plans of attack openly so they share their notes with him. He offers the knowledge he has on the subject matter, and finds their analysis of the situation sound. Judging by the pattern of the attacks, this is a nest of vampires grabbing people from a street crossing a few towns over as food.

Four people have been taken. If the pattern holds up, a fifth could be taken tonight. Tara and Annie plan on striking tomorrow night. They’ve gathered what they need.

And so Castiel finds himself drawn into his first case as a human hunter, and he thinks that maybe this could work out after all. 

* * *

Realizing that Ellen will surely attempt to look him up, Castiel spends a few hours around midnight creating false papers. In this digital age, this is much more easier done than it would have been before; but it also poses new problems, as he is aware he might be seen and identified as his vessel. Angels could be watching, even if they at this point would not have any idea, thanks to the heavy wards, that he’s one of them. Having watched Bobby, Sam, and Dean doing so at various times in the past, he is fairly certain how to proceed. 

Soon enough, birth certificate has been made and entered into the system, listing him as Cas Novak, born March 1, 1973 in a sleepy town in Vermont, but there is no apparent relation to Jimmy’s family - it’s better that way. He also, understanding that such things too are important, makes it seem that he’s attended college to study history and there’s a brief medical record - minor things: a broken arm; chickenpox as a child. The ruse must be convincing enough. As a hunter, it would also make sense if he’s tried to wipe out his past, so he doesn’t make it too detailed.

He considers searching for the staff who worked at the college in question in the years he’d ‘attended’ and giving them false, vague memories - weak imprints of a teenager - but decides against it, as it would cause a flare of Grace that could be picked up by the Host. It’s also a question of consent and Castiel has learned much about that, about morals, since he Fell; it wouldn’t be right. The papers are enough.

(It has to be.)

* * *

The next day he meets up with Tara Rogers and Annie Hawkins at the specified location. The motel is like so many others and the sign is rusty. The car isn’t an Impala but still stocked with the necessary supplies and enough arms to get them arrested if caught by police. Tara is studying a map closely when Castiel approaches.

The nest lies fifteen miles away. They’ve done some careful recon, the women had explained yesterday.

There’s a chance the vampires will hold live prisoners. Those must be freed; it is part rescue operation, part extermination. 

The road trip is quiet for starters. Castiel thinks it is awkward, in the sense that humans feel it, even if it doesn’t affect him in the same manner. Not exactly. He is too old for silence to bother him. After a while, Rogers and Hawkins begin to speak over the radio - it’s not the same kind of music that Dean listens to. Softer around the edges, but nothing like the Choirs of Heaven either.

“So, Novak, you Russian or something? With that name, I mean,” Rogers asks, glancing at him through the mirror, her hands on the wheel.

“No,” he says honestly, but adds: “My family immigrated here.” Technically, it is not an outright lie. His siblings were once Ordered to watch over the Earth and its humans, and once upon a time they began to descend and take vessels; and he choose humanity at last over the Host, and that decision can’t be unmade.

“Ah. Makes sense,” the woman nods and doesn’t probe the matter further.

The remaining thirty minute journey progresses in silence, and Castiel stares out the window. This is an echo, he realises, an echo of times too brief when he was Falling and sat in the back of the Impala and tried to be helpful. An echo of that painful hunt with Sam and Dean and Ellen and Jo when the Hellhounds attacked them in Carthage, and Castiel so foolishly was lured in by the Reapers and trapped in a ring of fire - he’d sat in the back of Ellen's truck, then. The music had differed from Dean’s usual then too. Jo had flipped between the channels, and Castiel hadn't understood the appeal at the time; he still doesn't, not fully. He supposes it’s something he might one day learn.

He’ll learn to be human.


End file.
